Capaldi's casting is, Who showrunner Steven Moffat tells us, "a big declaration of intent" for the long-running sci-fi series - a "statement of [its] importance" - but how much do we actually know about the new Doctor and his upcoming adventures?

Both Moffat and Capaldi's co-star Jenna Coleman agree that the 55-year-old actor will be "so different" to his 31-year-old predecessor Matt Smith, with the show's head writer promising an "old beast" with a "snarl".

"We've got used to two brilliant iterations of the younger, more puppy-dog Doctor and [David Tennant and Matt] have both been superlative," Moffat said in November. "But now it's time for the old beast to snarl at you for a bit!

"Sometimes you see that a bit in Matt Smith's Doctor - he will remind the people around him, 'I'm not really like this' - but I think Peter's Doctor will make that even clearer."

Guiding the Doctor through his latest traumatic regeneration, and fans through the transition from "puppy dog" Smith to "old beast" Capaldi, will be the Paternoster Gang - Vastra (Neve McIntosh), Jenny (Catrin Stewart) and Strax (Dan Starkey) - as Moffat first revealed to Digital Spy back in July.

"Vastra, Jenny and Strax are all enormously popular characters, and we've got Clara still continuing," he explained at last year's San Diego Comic-Con. "[That] allows us to do [the regeneration] in a very different way from the way that we did it in 'The Eleventh Hour'."

"You can push that [new] Doctor a bit further, maybe, if you've got a familiar world around him."

So that's the Doctor - but what of his adventures? Series eight of Doctor Who will air as an uninterrupted run, with Moffat and Brian Minchin as executive producers.

Stepping in to replace producer Marcus Wilson - who departed the show following Matt Smith's swansong 'The Time of the Doctor' - are Nikki Wilson and Peter Bennett. The latter produced Smith's first series in 2010 and also worked on Torchwood, while the former is a veteran of both Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures.

On the directing front, The Kill List and Sightseers filmmaker Ben Wheatley is helming the first two 2014 episodes - quite a coup for Who - followed by Paul Murphy on episodes three and six. Douglas Mackinnon is also confirmed for an unspecified block, but the smart money's on episodes four and five.

With his new team in place, Steven Moffat is promising an escape from the uber-slick Doctor Who we've seen of late - from August, expect something a little more "raw".

"You learn how to do [this show], you get really slick at it, and then you think you're really, really slick at it and everyone's started to yawn," he hinted. "And you think, 'Oh God, we're really slick at this but everyone knows what we're going to do'.

"So now we've got to actually get a bit raw at it and do it in a different direction…"

Doctor Who - starring Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman - is expected to return to BBC One in August.